set you apart
by mirai3k
Summary: He's going to smack Alex upside the head when he sees him because that hurt.  He'll kiss him after, till their lungs give out, but first thing's first and all that.  Alex/Darwin


_set you apart_;

_established havok/darwin (alex/armando); pg; ~800w._

_notes: _  
>- for the prompt: <em>Darwin can adapt to anything, some things just take him a little longer than others. Post Movie - Darwin manages to pull himself back together and goes looking for the team. <em>  
>- spoilers obviously and AU for certain events in the movie-this is how i cope with the things i do not like.<p>

x

It's painstaking is what it is, putting one's self back together, atom by atom.

He's going to smack Alex upside the head when he sees him because that _hurt_. The stupid kid with his stupid, brilliant, beautiful power. (He'll kiss him after, till their lungs give out, but first thing's first and all that.)

And Shaw-well, Shaw's going to get his ass handed to him. Darwin may not be the one doing it but he doesn't think he'll have any objection when Erik pulls the proverbial trigger. The fact that it will happen, he has no doubt about it either. With a man like Erik? No doubt at all. It's just a matter of when really.

Now Darwin's just waiting on his toes to recondense after they vapourized all over the place, and then, he'll be good to go.

x

They don't make themselves easy to find. Part of him thinks, _Good,_ because it means they are all the safer for it. The rest of him thinks, _Seriously?_ Like he hadn't just put up with enough.

He sighs, long suffering, wishes briefly he could evolve into a telepath, just very, very briefly. Given that that's not exactly an option, he sticks with what he has and uses his head instead.

x

It takes him four days. North Salem, of course. _Xavier's mansion._

He'd eyed the place and thought, _So that was the money behind the accent._

He could knock and enter like a normal person or he could torment Alex a little bit because a) he isn't exactly a normal person and b) this way would be more fun.

x

He blends in with the walls of the bunker while Charles sets up the mannequins. Alex trails after him, grumbling all the while.

_Training,_ thinks Darwin, and, _Good call._

Alex looks like hell, to put it simply. He looked like hell when Darwin first met him but he likes to think it got a bit better somewhere along the way, and that he helped with it, maybe a little.

Charles can't read Darwin because Charles isn't expecting him. The funny thing with telepaths is that for all their power, their minds control them, play tricks on them. As far as Charles knows, Darwin's dead, and so he's not going to be looking for something that he knows isn't there.

Darwin sits back and watches the show. The show being _Alex_, who is nine hundred kinds of gorgeous right now. He's got a new jacket on, which looks all wrong on him, like a funnel on a firestorm, but his aim's better now so at least there is that.

Alex is out of breath by the end of it but there's something in the line of his back. He's claiming it now, rather than the other way around.

Darwin's more than a little proud. He also thinks it's high time he crawled out of the woodwork and so he emerges from the wall, says, "Hey."

Alex whirls around and his energy is about to have a go at Darwin but he drops to his knees instead, wraps both his arms around himself as if keeping it in, in, _in_. "What the fuck, Mystique? Is this some kind of sick joke? When did you-? You could have _died__._"

"Easy there," Darwin smiles, and then, "it's me." He turns to rock, to flame, to metal, all in quick succession within less than a second, to prove it.

Alex breathes, "_No fucking way_," doesn't ask him how, doesn't ask him anything, and has his arms around Darwin before Darwin can blink, has his hands on Darwin's neck and his mouth pressed against Darwin's jaw, and he's hissing, "I fucking hate you right now," and, "you and your _stupid_ hero complex," and, "don't you ever, ever, _ever_ do that again."

It's not about a hero complex, he wants to say. It's about doing whatever they can to set themselves apart, to be the best they can be. Alex should understand and deep down, Darwin knows that he does. Alex burns an underground bunker in a metal jacket. Armando, well, Armando adapts; he becomes Darwin, and when that's not enough, _Darwin_ adapts because that's what Darwin _does_. It's all Darwin _can_ do.

"What part of it?" Darwin asks, smiling and sliding fully back into the skin he was born with, Armando's skin.

Alex runs his hands over that skin, pulls him impossibly close and bites his lip. "I hate you so much," Alex says through his teeth, but when he kisses him, Darwin doesn't need to be a telepath to make out what he's really trying to say. 


End file.
